I started a fresh game with Ada of Rome, on everything standard, deity, Fractal map and light disasters.
Natural disasters indeed seem to occur at tolerable frequency now, and not every turn even on the light level. And the coastlines became much more interesting.
I quickly found myself pressed for space from north and south east. Up there there were Xerxes, King of Kings of Persia and Niccollo of Greece, down east Harriet of Egypt - I've met her for the first time in my games, I just heard of her reputation, so at once I felt a bit tense. The last one to the west was Isabella of Carthage.
Northern guys played cool for the time being, but Mrs Tubman forward settled and denounced me. Got denounced by Izzy as well. And as Rome was one city and two towns large, Harriet decided that Ada's scientific projects just had to stop. After quite a protracted fight and with most Mejays dispatched and Legions standing at the walls of Akhetaten, she finally agreed to peace and ceded that forward settle to Rome. Still a bit too hasty a decision, I'd say, it felt like a bit of a gift, as I was also quite exhausted.
Nevertheless, Rome returned to peace, building and expanding. A denunciation by Machiavelli followed, a repeated one by Izzy, who started spreading like wildfire with her towns, blocking the City of Rome's exit to the ocean. I placed 2 more settlements and eventually was living with 3 cities and 3 towns, and building. Until the Crisis started and brough the Plague. Which was surprisingly light. I only got two light outbreaks during the remainder of the Age.
And then treacherous Greece and perfidious Carthage conspired against burgeoning Rome, despite the Plague, and double DoWed. NW and W borders became battlefields. I thought I'd hold the line easily, but casualties started piling up. And although I stalled the Machiavelly quite alright, Isabella was slowly increasing pressure, until her lvl3 Numidian Cavalry showed up, in a bit of numbers, so that they managed to take Napoli, my SW town! On the turn before the last, as it turned out. Thank goodness, I had just enough Legions and a commander to retake the town on the last turn of the age, very close shave! And, of course a couple of turns before the age end, Harriet also joined in the happy pile-up on Rome.
The transition came in the nick of time (for me, at least
), it really took a lot of load of my back!
Btw, I've vassalized two IPs, but got nothing for the second one for some reason, was it a bug? Xerxes was my only buddy on this hostile continent and kept offering me Military Aid agreements, what a bro!
I picked Normans for exploration, but stopped here for now, next time I'll see how AI handles the transition and the age of Exploration.
